Because Dorset Is Home

This is the prologue to a possible novel i'm planning, so any comments/ideas would be appreciated.

Summer seems out of place in the city. There’s a bizarre corruption in the July humidity, the gigantic grey shadows of the tower blocks are penetrating the sunbeams and stealing the innocence that the light brings; replacing the freedom with the defeating reminder of reality. It’s this exactly that instils such joy in me about returning to the country. London can be placed on pause for a while. The eager bustle of the urban life, the underground serpent, the caffeine-driven energy of it all; everything can be pushed aside for the summer. Replaced by the subtleness, the contented ease of the West-country. Even the smell of the salt-tainted air and the incessant cries of the gulls instantly lulls me into a sense of calm. At long last the sleepy security of Dorset has reclaimed it’s estranged child, albeit for far too short a time.

“Cup of tea.” Mum chimed, scuttling around the Aga. Nothing had changed, nothing does here; as if everything is caught in a comfortable time lock.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, a bite of my digestive dissolving into a cascade of crumbs.

“He’s picking up Jack. And a crate of wine probably.” The used tea-bags seemed almost despondent in the china bowl. My family was relatively ordinary I suppose. As ordinary as a slightly-self-sufficient-ex-hippie couple with two bowler-hat-wearing offspring can be. Firstly, there’s mum. Lynn. A sentimental, spherical woman. Who’s existence was driven by cheesecakes and T. S. Elliot. She was eternally available for a leisurely chat or a rant about the ‘1984-esc society’ of the 21^st century. Then of course there’s Dad. Phil. A lecturer who’s retirement has been spent filing receipts and losing at chess. My parents were two opposites. Opposites who seemed to fit together, tight and secure in their different worlds. Then, leaving out the chickens and Ebony the Labrador, there’s Jack. My sister. A, how can I describe her? This bizarre-foreign creature who, in a household of sensibility and initiatives exists in French films and a near-dyspraxic clumsiness. She has been and always will be, about the most beautiful human in the world to me. And finally, there’s me. Elcy. Too short. Too plump. Too, well… ‘me’. The youngest of the Hampton clan. My existence is predominantly controlled by Supertramp vinyls and ukuleles. After leaving at eighteen for a gap year in which I pottered around parts of Mexico and blogged about the poverty of LED countries, university life engulfed me. The craze of London and the instant reality check of how little I can afford whilst still contemplating paying back my student loan hit me. My life in London is the usual pointless day-to-day mull, with far too much time spent hidden in a bowl of supernoodles whilst puzzling over Morse. A usual family, a usual life and a usual girl.